Bruce Glikas/FilmMagicBig Brother alum Zach Rance says that he is bisexual and that when he starred on the CBS reality show years ago, he fell in love and "hooked up" with former co-star Frankie Grande.
Frankie, singer Ariane Grande's openly gay older brother, has not responded to Ranch's comments, which he made on Tuesday, Dec. 8 during a collective YouTube conversation about mental health, sexual orientation and gender identity. The Mental Health Collection, an initiative Zach leads, and the podcast With Love, Alexa, presented the virtual event.
"I've been straight my entire life," said Zach, who co-starred with Frankie on season 16 of Big Brother in 2014. "I've only liked women, you know, but on Big Brother, Frankie and I got super super close and I fell in love with who he was as a person—super funny, super smart, you know, good-looking guy. And as time went on, we got so close that I wasn't really sure if I had feelings for him or not."
Zach said that he had previously "always been straight." He added, "After the show happened, him and I did have a relationship that was more than just friends and he was the first guy that I ever hooked up with. And after that night, I was very unsure about the direction of my sexuality because I like women parts."
Zach said that afterwards, he was "very uncertain" about his "next move." He said, "I don't want to say I tried—being gay, but I watched gay pornography and I was like, 'Oh that guy, he's good-looking, he's hot,' like would I want to hook up with him? And I'm like, no. Like, I wouldn't want to make out with him. So then, I was like, wait a second, is it just because Frankie is someone who I'm really close with?"
"And then I was at a photo shoot in New York City and it was like an underwear photo shoot and the photographer and I ended up hooking up," Zach continued. "And I was like, 'Whoa.' And it was a guy, obviously, and I was like, whoa, like, second guy I hooked up with, okay, like, where am I at right now? But the more I thought about being with a guy, or like, you know, making out is one thing but doing more than making out with a guy is something I just don't, I don't want to do, and like, I've never tried it. But I just want to come out and say that I enjoyed hooking up with Frankie and the other guy I hooked up with. Clearly, I enjoyed it because things went down."
Zach continued, "We try not to label anything, you know, like, gender is super fluid, so it's hard for me to just say, 'I'm straight.' I'm not gay either but I just want to come out and say that, then be transparent and come out and say I am bisexual even though I do lean more towards heterosexuality. I just wanted to clear the air on that because it's funny, a lot of people have reached out to me about the Frankie thing and I never came out and said that I'm bisexual, but I am."
Zach said he wants to "inspire other people" to "just be more open-minded." He added, "Because you can fall in love with someone's mind and you can fall in love with someone's heart and you can have a sexual relationship with those people because you're attracted to their mind you're attracted to their heart. You don't have to just be attracted to the way they look."